By Bolaji O. Akinyemi
Tunji Bello started with his personal decision not to dabble into various political duels going on “this platform” knowing fully well everyone is entitled to their political opinion.
The need to separate political hatred or propaganda from facts necessitated his response. Irrespective of the embarrassing spellings of words, we must thank “this Tunji Bello” profusely, whose writing is far from the Tunji Bello we know.
However we are lost to the meat of the discussion and the identity of the platform on which this was made.
I won’t want to assume i know the interview to which Tunji Bello referred. So I will stay within the context of the known facts of the response as it concerned ordinary Lagosians and as it relates to Tinubu.
It has taken an insider in Lagos, a member of Tinubu kitchen cabinet to show us the design of Tinubu rail projects for Lagos State since 2005! Whatever happens to my Lagos, your Lagos, OUR LAGOS! It could as well be that whenever we see my Lagos, it refers to Tinubu’s, your Lagos refers to Seyi, the crown prince of the dynasty to whom the right of inheritance of Lagos belongs. He holds the authority to off and on the switch that lightens or darkens Lagos to his generation as the world witnessed at Lekki Tollgate. At his light the youths lived and under the cover of his darkness they were killed, by who? This Tunji, who is a member of the Bourdillon cabal should know and must tell us!
“Asiwaju Tinubu designed 7 rail lines for Lagos State in 2005”, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, what a leader Tinubu is! 7 designs and not 1 has been completed 17 years after!
The whole of Nigeria should stand to celebrate BAT the father of propaganda politics and the progenitor of “modern Lagos”!
Tunji, in his words, “and I was a member of his cabinet as well as a member of the committee that designed it including the present Governor”. It has taken 17 years for TB to become the unappointted Spoke person of the “secret cult” running the entity called Lagos. Their brand of democracy should be queried; it is far from being the government of the people by the people and for the people, and when you hear them say our Lagos, it doesn’t include YOU and ME, their ‘our’ is limited to BAT’s family and privileged stewards of Bourdillon palace like this Tunji Bello.
“First was a cabinet team sent to 3 South American countries”. This Tunji and others whose number we don’t know went on tour of 3 South American countries on tax payers’ money, ran a budget, collected estacodes and 17 years after has the gut to spew this nonsense, how i wish Nigeria is China!
…”that came back and we decided through modifications that Lagos needed part of what we saw”. Please, there is no point being ambiguous! Modification of which? What Jakande planned, what Tinubu designed of what you brought from your trip? It was convenient to mention Obasanjo’s siezure of LG fund, it stalled Tinubu’s plan for Lagos, whatever happens to the money after it was paid, If it was meant for this project!
The management of the information regarding the payment threw clog in Fasola’s wheel of progress and he was almost stopped from the 2nd term. It rewarded Ambode with the ticket years later.
“Out of our committe (committee) came 7 rail lines out of which Fashola who succeeded him and a member of the team at that time started the Blue line”. The deception that Fasola’s Blue line has become has won how many elections? His 1st and 2nd, Ambode’s election, Sanwo-Olu’s election. I thought Lagos, they say is Ilu-Ogbon? Unfortunately she is inhabited by “awon Omugo”! How come we haven’t come to terms with this light rail narrative, it is always screwed towards this white elephant project once another election is approaching. We all should be bothered. As a matter of fact, we should be disturbed about the magnitude of an hole of fraud in Lagos’s pocket that this project has become!
Bello should have cleared with Lagosians Gbadamosi’s revelation regarding this 27.5 kilometer rail that was announced in 2009 and in 2022, 13 years after, Tinubu want to use it to win 2023 Presidential election and Sanwo-Olu’s Governorship election!
Similar project in Ethiopia we were told cost less by the same company, the Ethiopian project (a 759 kilometer rail) started in 2011, 2 years after Lagos project was announced and was completed in 2016, test ran in 2017 and commissioned for public use in January 2018!
According to Gbadamosi, what Lagos claimed will cost 1.5 billion dollars the company building it in their submission to China stock exchange was for 181million dollars. If not that the media has been bought and legislatures are castrated, will men who should be in jail be running their mouth before an oppressed public! This scam of a rail project has 1.2 billion dollars unaccounted for. This Tunji should tell us what he knows about it.
“And Sanwoolu who was also a member of the team started the Red line”. Am not sure you heard this privileged information, Bello, Fasola, and Sanwo-Olu have been in the Lagos kitchen since 2005 helping themselves to sumptuous meals and nourishing delicacies. “Awa lokan” indeed. Those who have never left the kitchen sold “Awa lokan” to hungry Lagos street, this can only happen in Ilu-ogbon but ‘Ibugbe awon Omugo’.
17 years on! Where are the Blue and the Red lines?
In their usual craftiness they raised your hopes as usual so you can vote for another dream land Lagos; “The Green line is for Lekki corridor all the way to Epe and Epe to connect the Purple line to Ikorodu”. Is the Purple line substituting the 4th Mainland bridge? Oh you have forgotten that they haven’t delivered on that promise and they are making another!
If APC wins another Governorship election in Lagos, then bet it! This generation of youths “ma go ku ni”!
“Ordinarily in other climes it is the Federal Government that is supposed to foot that rail responsibility for states”. I thought you were told that it was important for Lagos and Federal to be controlled by the same party in 2015 so that Lagos can rapidly develop, for which reasons you voted Buhari! Ntor!!
Those of us you called names in 2015 are here to tell you, stop playing the fool! Lagos economy is bigger than most African countries, 1999-2023, 24 years of your life Ali baba and his forty legislative thieves should not continue to mismanage in 2023.
“But no kobo has come from FG till today as our State has been bearing the brunt”.
OBJ ma daran o! “Tinubu was unable to start the project as Obasanjo seized our Local Governments funds due to more LGS creation for almost two years and we had to provide for them”. This money was paid like I said, but why are we not being reminded that Lagos light rail project that is now the card through which Lagos is kidnapped by BAT and ransom is being paid by tax payers for 24 years! Shouldn’t we be talking about this, if the same Buhari made a saint and our hope by BAT in 2015 didn’t stop Jakande’s project in 1983. This Tunji, whoever he is should stop insulting us, what we were due for 40 years ago that Buhari denied us shouldn’t be an excitement to win election in 2023!
“Tinubu also started the Lekki-Epe Express way and I was in the negotiating team with the consortium that financed it”. Sir, we aren’t all fools, this political communication is a subtle appeal to get the Lekki toll gate open. Toll gate in Nigeria, if we gain nothing under OBJ, at least we are made to know, is nothing but fraud!
And if you don’t believe that, then ask yourself how much has the toll gate at the airport contributed to the development of the facilities at the airport!
How much is Lagos generating at the Lekki Toll Gate? It Is time Tinubu opens his book to us. If this Tunji Bello succeeded at anything at all with this response, it is that since 1999, Tinubu is Lagos, and Lagos is Tinubu, the only solution to this democratic anomalies is anything, but Tinubu and his APC!
“A senior Lawyer in this our estate was one of the Lawyers for the consortium”, the garbage spew by Tunji Bello is for residents of their privileged estate who are providing legal and consultancy services for the rot call Lagos State. It is not for stranded inhabitants of ikorodu who are still dreaming about an imaginary 4th mainland bridge. Not for the neglected Alimoso dwellers, who are only hailed every four years as Tinubu home country!
“Setting up the toll gate was part of the ways to be able to pay back the funds raised by the consortium”. So how much of the money has been paid back before Seyi Tinubu switched off the light!
“Just like when they claimed Tinubu owned Oriental Hotels and I laughed. My ministry gave the Hong Kong owner of the Steel Company in Ogba, Ikeja and famous owner of former Golden Crown Chinese restaurant since 1970s the drainage clearance to build that hotel and when they were opening it they labeled the underground restaurant there after Tinubu and some have repeatedly said Tinubu owned it despite the owner’s repeated claim”.
We agree with TB, an Hong Kong company in Nigeria owns Oriental Hotels, please, who is the owner of the company in Nigeria, or they don’t have a Nigerian on their board? Tunji shouldn’t be half smart! Spill the beans and let’s pick it!
“Tinubu created LASTMA to solve the chaotic traffic situation in Lagos which other states have copied and I was Editor of National Concord then with Kingsley Osadolor as Editor of the Guardian as members of the founding committee that made recommendation for setting it up in the year 2000”. Is LASTMA the reason why Tinubu’s hold on Lagos must be eternally perpetuated? The problem of insecurity and effective policing can only be solved by state police, and if the department of traffic control in the police is granted state autonomy like the police we won’t be here celebrating uniformed area boys, most time lacking civility in their operations.
Tinubu also initiated the BRT and the construction of BRT lanes . I remember when the lanes were ready in April 2007 going to meet Tinubu to let us commission it and he said to me that let us leave it for Fashola to kick start his administration. TB should come on an excursion to Abule-Egba BRT park to see the effective management of the buses, with hundreds packed for lack of tyres. And those still working has no air-conditioning. That must be the Dubai transportation system they hope to leave us with in Lagos. We are like back to the old molue days, standing in BRT from Abule-Egba to Obalende!
“You see, you may not like Asiwaju and may not believe that any good can come from him, but you can not deny his purposeful leadership and neither can you deny his legacy”. Purpose are in contest of individual, Tunji Bello should not limit our Lagos to the purpose is serving him and his paymaster. Lagos is more than that. Among is Legacy is the fall of an emperor at Lekki Toll Gate, Nigerian youths has vowed never to forget!
“He is the most tolerant leader and has never looked back in accommodating other ethnic groups in his administration”. Nepotism reared its head, how can this Tunji Bello deamean the Tunji Bello we are assuming must have written this? How can he make it look as if other ethnic groups in Lagos are being done a favor in a democracy by the man who himself is originally from Osun and not Lagos!
Elites illiteracy is the biggest problem of Nigeria, we like to fool our people by negotiating with what the constitution doesn’t recognize. Ok now let’s go ethnic! Lagos State the territory recognized by 1999 constitution as amended then belong to Awori, Egun, and Ijebu, so where does that leave this Osun Lord of Lagos?
“He is not a perfect man and has his faults as well but you cannot deny him his right place in history”.
History aren’t necessarily written with the pen of our sycophants. They are engraved in the memories of those who bore the brunt of our wickedness. On their lips lies the tale of who we truly are! Tinubu’s history will not only be written by Fasola, Sanwo-Olu and Tunji Bello, every Lagosians has the right to tell the story of Tinubu. My prayer therefore is may posterity be kind to Tinubu’s history!
